


The End of the Day

by Ji_ajiit



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Lab Accidents, Science, this has no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-09 00:15:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7779139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ji_ajiit/pseuds/Ji_ajiit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you have a plan?" he asks.<br/>"Yeah, I have a plan," she retorts.<br/>"Is it a good plan?" he asks.<br/>"I have a plan," she responds, not missing a beat, the alarms continuing to scream in the next room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The End of the Day

**Author's Note:**

> Beverly, Doug, and this whole goddam mess all belong to me. I keep it because I can mess with the formatting.

"Do you have a plan?" he asks. 

"Yeah, I have a plan," she retorts. 

"Is it a good plan?" he asks. 

"I have a plan," she responds, not missing a beat, the alarms continuing to scream in the next room. 

It had been an accident waiting to happen. Live samples of xenobiology, in glass sample tubes that were practically antiques, old enough to predate the shatterproof tech found in better-funded labs. The building was at least a hundred years old, with contamination containment procedures that were suspect at best. Most of the scientists were interns and sleep-deprived undergraduate and graduate students, all dreaming of a brighter future involving better labs and more sleep. They were the only ones willing to work in such unsafe conditions, and they got out as soon as they could, moving to other projects or other companies or other fields entirely. 

Now one of those kids was dead on the floor, and an unknown alien sample was lose in the workroom that wasn't cycling properly. 

What. A. Mess. 

Not a single emergency measure was kicking in from outside the lab. Wires hung dejectedly from the control box next to the airlock, destroyed in their efforts to get something to kick in. Some small animal had made the box its nest, and there was no putting it back together in their limited timeframe. The green light on the control box across the room, though, that was still on and blinking like it was supposed to. If someone could get there, could trip that switch, the alien contaminant would be at the very least trapped in the room, if not outright destroyed. A shame, losing a sample, but it was more important to protect this planet and its inhabitants than to try salvage a mystery. 

Someone had to hit that button, and Beverly Masters had a plan. It wouldn't bring back that poor, stupid kid, but it would save the others clustered at the doors to their labs, muttering questions to each other. 

"Everyone!" Beverly barks, "Clear out to the next air lock. Move, people!" The grad students and interns – so young, she thinks, so fucking young – flood towards the exit like water from a burst barrel. Within minutes, only Douglas and she are left in the hallway. 

"You don't have to do this," he reminds her quietly. "We can get Security over here instead. Really it's-" 

"Doug," Beverly interrupts, "You and I both know that security couldn't find their ass with both hands and a mirror. They haven't been trained to handle a spill like this in the last decade." 

Douglas looks down, abashed. He knows she's right. 

It's not a good plan, but it's all they have. 

"Go wait with the others, Doug," Beverly orders quietly. "You'll hear the all clear." Douglas shakes her hand. 

"It's been a real pleasure," he utters sincerely before turning his back on her and walking away. 

The lab airlock seems to be sealing properly, but she waits for him to close the doors at the end of the hall anyway. No reason to take unneeded chances, not today. Not now. 

The airlock closes her in with a gust of indrawn air and she waits for the pressure to equalize, forcing herself to breath evenly. I'll have to run, she thinks calmly. There is no way to tell how this sample kills, so she will hope that middle-aged human speed and determination will be enough to get her to the other side of the room. 

The door in front of her opens with a hiss, and she leaps forward. Halfway across the lab, she steps into something she cannot see and feels it wrap tight, burning as it sinks through her skin. She goes another step, one, two more, and slams her hand on the big red lever, flipping it to "engaged." 

The burning is following her bones towards her torso. Her hands shake as she pulls her phone out of her coveralls. 

"Bev?" Douglas answers on the first ring. "Did it work?" She can hear the hiss of the hyper-flammable gas being pumped into the lab. 

"Yup, Doug, it worked," she grits out from behind clenched teeth as she lets herself slide into a sitting position, propped up by the cold metal wall of the lab. The burning kills the nerves it has passed through, leaving behind an odd nothingness where she should be able to feel her leg. Beverly shuts her eyes, not wanting to see what is happening to her body. 

"Doug? Do me a favor?" 

"Yeah, of course. Anything." 

"My kids – don't tell them it ended like this. Tell them I said something good." 

"Yeah Bev. Yeah. Look, I know it hasn't been easy since Will died -" 

"Oh, shut it, Doug," she gasps. "You were the best guy friend a dyke could ask for, after." 

"Yeah?" He says, pausing briefly. The burn hits her pelvis during the silence and now it's going down her other leg and up her spine and she can hear her breath rasping loudly in the speaker. "You want me to stay on the line, until-" 

"Hell no. No. I, I can't, I – fuck! – I gotta, I can't not scream. Time to, to go," she gasps before ending the call. 

There were no headlines on the news sites. Accident in a government lab? No one was touching that story. 

Doug did as she asked, lying to her kids. They didn’t need to know the truth. 

Douglas remembers Beverly Masters, at the end of the days as he locks up the labs. Some of the interns and grad students (he isn't sure who, and he never can decide if he wants to thank them or give bad reviews to their advisors for reminding him) have set up a memorial outside Lab. No. 52, which is now permanently sealed. She'd saved them. She'd saved their research. Yeah, the kids remember her, too, Doug thought as he locked the gate.


End file.
